Toshi Densetsu Monogatari Hikiko

This was kind of a taboo for me, since it was entirely made on computer and I tend to dislike entirely computer made animations. Okay, I still disliked the fact that it was entirely made on computer graphics, but I managed to stick with it because the story got a hold of me.

I don't know how developed is the 3D world these days, since I don't play games since ages ago, but speaking about the graphics here, I can say that there were some good animations and some bad, for example, the faces looked quite realistic, but in contrast, the bodies sometimes were ... bad animated and badly drawn in some scenes and reminded me of those animated bodies of the first Resident Evil game days, if you know what I mean.

It begins when a grown up young man is invited to a class reunion, so he ends up going to visit his old house on his old town, once there, he remembers a very unusual chapter that happened when he was a child and lived in that place...

Characters were well fit into the story and they didn't felt dislocated. It had a scary “the ring” similar girl character there, that helped to kept your eyes glued on the screen. The story was built up in a good suspense and got a hold of me during most of it’s time, but when the end came, I didn’t felt like it tied very good, it happens a lot with recent horror stories and in my view it happened with this one also.

It was a very entertaining nevertheless and I committed the error of watching it in the morning, the sound effects and the obscurity of some scenes were perfectly matched for a dark evening visualization.
Next time I'll to keep that in mind.

If you’re familiar with the recent Japanese horror cinema scene, you’ll know more or less what to expect here.

Rate; 7.3/10

This is one rather spooky show, just the expressions on the characters faces make it rather scary. When they actually picked CG to make this, I think they picked a pretty good medium for a horror based OVA. The show starts out with a boy reliving his days as a 3rd year in a town. A young girl moves in to his next door apartment and he watches as she is tortured by his classmates and mother. Creepy things just keep happening because of the bulling that happens. It’s not a very underused story, but the twist at the end was rather good.

The animation looks ... like it would fit right at home with a horror based video game. It’s kind of in the middle between good CG and bad CG but doesn’t make it hard to watch. Most of the backgrounds look like they were created with photo rendering mixed with a little of the CG but then the characters… well, they at least are rather smooth. When they move, it’s rather stiffly, good for demons but bad for any normal characters.

The voices are ok, though sometimes come off as a little stale or strict. I believe this is more because of the culture gap between the Japanese subs and what I’m used to hearing.

This may change for if we get more information on who actually created this show and that but I think one of the most interesting things about this is that there is very little details about the show too (That I can find) adding to the mystery of it.

You can skip this one. Maybe if we were around the age of 4 and didn't have exposure for too many horror films, this could be creepy at best. But for today standards is just a waste of time, let me tell you why.

The story lacks depth, that's fair enough for an urban legend. Yet, it doesn't excuse the nonsensical ending. Only to put a twist, the story forces a perspective that don't make sense, but maybe I overlooked something, you let me know.

The graphics of the CGI are average for the time, and that's the best in the art department. The pacing of the ... animation is awful, it moves worse than most PS2 cut-scenes, which I'm talking 8 years prior this film. The sound design is good in some parts and weird in most of the film, but sound design in horror is a very subjective thing as it creates ambient noise and other moods for the audience, but the dialog is horrible.

The film is hard to find in English, at least the whole, you'll find the first half easy — you may not find anything in the future.

I do respect the creators and don't know anything about their budget and situation. I feel the intention, but is bad overall, go watch some News or Deviant Art, that will do!